Banner, Loki
by Ink-and-Blink
Summary: One-shot. Set after the movie. I always hated the Hulk but Ruffalo did a great job, so now I can't. Added a Loki blurb. I'll eventually write one for each character.
1. History

Disclaimer: Pssh, not only do I not own the Avengers. I wish I was one of them. I would lurk around the corners. My power would be to have nimble fingers to jot down all of the action.

Author's Rant Space: And as always, any critique is always welcome. Grrr... take your best shot anons!

Banner propped his back on the wall and listened carefully to the speech being given. He spotted Rogers sitting stiffly in the front row, Banner could imagine Rogers wanting to be standing with the rest of the guard. He would want to have one of the adorned rifles in his hands and give the mournful salute with the rest of the guard. There was Miss Potts, she had her head bowed and was twisting a napkin in her hand. The pain in her eyes was evident, a few tears escaped her napkin. Banner quickly bowed away from the dark canopy, clutching the watch in his pocket.

A willow became his refuge, the long tendrils swept the grass and dirt. He crouched there, feeling the bubbling and frothing from the other guy teem towards the surface of his skin. _Not here_, grimly he clutched at the watch and concentrated on the rough edges of the etched silver. _A laser would have prevented the roughened edges. It would have created perfectly smooth concentric circles and..._

The other guy heeled onto his haunches and gazed at him balefully, but still ready to leap. Banner let out his breath in a gust. A branch caught him and he somehow managed to get entangled in it. Finally, he simply snapped the stalk and unwound the thin willow's branch from his neck. _If only it had been that easy_, thought Banner ruefully; the other guy growled threateningly and Banner let the branch fall into a coil at his feet.

A murmur of voices swelled behind him, Banner saw a procession of people leaving the tent. There was a whole squadron of officers who must've been his coworkers, friends...

Banner sighed, the willow rustled its leaves. The wind picked up again and they viciously whipped him in the face. "Alright, I'm going," _Geez, not even the trees like being near me_.

"Banner! You're going to get left behind and be late. Not that it would be a problem, you could just get mad and then everyone would _have to_ make room for you at the dinner table." He couldn't help it, Banner chuckled softly and wound his way through the people towards the dark red car; most of the people gave him a wide berth. That kind of behavior no longer stung him; you wouldn't see a zebra foal chumming it up with a hungry crocodile would you? "I'm coming, is there even any room for me in that sport's car of yours?"

"Eeehhh, Miss Potts can just walk. And as long as you don't turn angsty." Miss Potts gave Banner a tearful smile and shook her head at the man she was in love with. _Sometimes he can be so cruel without meaning to_, but she measured the smile he directed towards Bruce and just shook her head at his grinning face. "There's room for all of us, hop in, Bruce." Banner marveled at how easily she allowed him to climb into the tiny car and sit behind her. Most people would have cringed at the notion. He sat sideways on the plush pleather seat and buckled himself in when the car revved onto the dirt drive.

Banner looked back, few people were still standing under the tent. A woman, a couple of men, Rogers, and Fury. The soil had been neatly patted down and a score of white, red and blue wreaths lay on the ground. "It's best not to look back too often Banner. It's no good for the future." Of course it wasn't, he'd been battling with his past and never won, "Doesn't mean the past isn't bewitching. Funny thing is that the past always seems to be changing, depending on what you're looking for or who's telling the story. It always seems to change itself through the mere fact that we're trying to understand it."


	2. Plans

Author's Rant Space: These always seem to appear at the most inconvenient times, like at 2 am. Anyway, here's Loki. The Norse Gods are owned by... I don't know actually. Critiques are much appreciated! Cheers.

He refused to look at his... at Thor sitting across from him. Something that felt like regret clouded him and prevented any contact between him and the Chitauri,_ thank... _Loki almost chuckled. _Who do I have to thank? No one. That's how it had always been, hadn't it? No one to thank, no one to trust, except.. _The dust of uncertainty grew thicker. "Loki..." the rumbling voice broke through his thoughts and he was hard pressed not to look up, "When we arrive home-" Loki snorted but was unable to contradict him, "You'll be put under house arrest until Father sees fit to release you." Fighting against the clamp on his face he tried to offer a scathing remark but the clamp only bit down harder and he winced. "I'd release the mouth-guard but they don't trust you. I was shouted down." Loki finally looked up and saw Thor gesture towards his little pack of followers. _Boot-licking scum_, the derision was clear in his eyes and it filled his heart completely. "_Loki_, I honestly don't know what we're going to do with you. You have to give up the idea that-"

"Mfrghlgrmmrh!" He twisted back in pain and slammed his head repeatedly into the side of the holding cell. Eyes leaking he tried to bring his hands towards the front but they were still bound. Again, Loki tried to scream and leapt to hurl himself at the walls, but Thor rushed forward and grasped him tightly, "What are you doing?" The warrior woman ran forward with her sword raised, snarling about it being a trap.

The glinting of metal filled his eyes and he was on The Meteor, three helmeted warriors approached him. The yawning darkness of the Void spun the rock slowly, he saw stars smudged against the darkness. They lifted strange shivering spears over their heads, aiming it at him, dimly he could hear Thor's voice. One warrior stabbed and a single thread of pain wiggled its way from his calf to his head where it exploded in a cacophony of jeers and laughter. _Death would be sweet_, Loki opened his mouth to scream-

"Keep calm little brother. It'll be alright. Father will know what to do. He is almost here."

_Little Brother? _The shadows receded and Loki was lying on the floor once again, clamp in place. His screaming was muffled to sniffles, he looked down at his calf and saw the blood that was oozing out, _Death would indeed be a sweet treat compared to them_. "He's bleeding," gasped one of the boot-lickers. Loki screamed in his head, _ Thanks for the input O-Wise Oracle!_ Thor hefted him to his feet and ordered one of the boot-lickers to stave off the bleeding with a strip of cloth. Soon Loki was being led out of the small cell and there, at the end of the hall was Odin. One eye small and roving, the other plated and dead. Loki straightened his shoulders, whatever Odin could say to him wasn't going to be as bad as the Chitauri. An idea sparked against the nape of Loki's brain, _Little brother, eh? Well, let's see how far you're willing to put these bonds to the test, brother. What are you willing to do for family?_


	3. Science

Author's Rant Space: I don't really have any more ideas for these random one-shots so if you'd like to see more of these, please offer ideas. As always, critiques are welcome. Enjoy :)

A small clinking sound woke him.

"Drink up, we're not done yet."

Banner rubbed his face, the edge of the computer slate had dug into his cheek and he could feel a small groove. "What time is it?" He slurped the coffee, pleased to taste the hazelnut and dark chocolate. He sighed in relief when the warm coffee hit his stomach. "Maybe we should stop for now. We can work on it tomorrow, Tony."

Stark glanced at him in surprise and turned back to digging around one of the cabinets, "It's already tomorrow. You've already wasted four hours of it with sleeping. Ah, here we go. A little pick me up to the caffeine." Tony took his mug and splashed some brown pungent liquid into it until it almost overflowed, "Here. Drink. Don't ask what it is because I bought it off the black market and it might just be vinegar."

"I can't imagine you walking around a black market. " He took a cautious sip and found the alcohol, or whatever it was, made him break out into a sweat. Tony took a giant gulp of his coffee and spat most of it out, "Jesus! I think we just drank gasoline."

Banner ignored him and walked over to one of the monitors. He enlarged a graph and absently slurped more of the coffee concoction, "Is this from the park?"

Tony scrutinized the graph, "Yeah. See that hitch? Must've been when they left." Banner shook his head, "But they left weeks ago." Tony opened his mouth, took a sip and tossed the rest of the coffee-gasoline into the sink," You mean this one is recent? When was it taken"

Banner enlarged the axis," Couple hours ago. And why would the energy residues still be hanging around even if it wasn't so recent? It's a public park. The initial readings that Ms. Foster recorded in New Mexico showed that the...rainbow road's..." he winced at the terminology," energy dissipated within twelve hours. And that place is a desert. The park shouldn't hold residues for any longer than, say, three hours. "

Tony squinted at the graph a moment longer, and a terrible thought wormed its way into his thoughts.

Slate in hand, Tony flung the graph onto the main frame and lay the most recent graph over the original one when they took the tesseract away, "Shit."

Banner took a giant gulp of his coffee and felt it burn into his stomach, "Should we call up Director Fury now or at a decent hour?"

Ton grimaced, "Naw. Let Pirate Pete catch his Zzz's, we can trace this by ourselves. Maybe if we root this thing out they'll let us back into headquarters."

Humming, Banner approached a screen with a map of the Earth, a smattering of blue dots covered the surface "Are these the locations of the different tears? " Tony nodded and continued typing away at a computer, forehead scrunched.

"Maybe we should tell S.H.I.E.L.D. about these, it would help us get back into their labs and we could use some of their scientists, I don't think we should mess around with anything that's come back through. At least, not alone."

Tony snorted, "You know perfectly well that _none_ of those people," he waved around a small green thing that appeared to be a screw driver but which Banner knew perfectly well could just as well be a tiny death laser, " are no match for us. We could- I don't know, walk into their lab and in twenty minutes have the mainframe under our- Oh."

Bruce smiled from behind his coffee mug, " I'll send Director Fury an e-mail later, meanwhile let's work out where the energy residues lead."


End file.
